


dragon's breath

by tigriswolf



Series: comment_fic drabbles [174]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Dragons, Elemental Magic, Fantasy, Gen, Magic, Women Being Awesome, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>We’re in one of those stories,</i> she thinks again, wanting to cry.  She knows how those stories end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title: dragon’s breath  
> Original, 3050 words  
> PG, gen  
> Prompt: Author's Choice, any, I want a pet dragon. I don't care how much fire it breathes!  
> Note: yes, it’s a Star Wars reference. *sporfle*  
> Another note: a part of me really wants to flesh out. I wrote it in about two hours and it seems like it could become pretty epic.

In the mountains, there are dragons. That's why all the kids of Tallow are taught to _never ever NO MATTER WHAT_ go into the mountains. Because there are dragons, and while they don't go _hunting_ for people, if a person is in their territory, they're fair game. So no going into the mountains. No matter what, not ever.

In school, there are classes about the dragons. The classes are taught before lunch because sometimes they get gory. (Once upon a time, there was no peace. People studied dragons and dragons studied people, and a lot on both sides died. _Many died to bring us this information_ is said at the end of every lesson, and the kids nod solemnly.) There are four kinds of dragons – flame drakes, dirt drakes, wind drakes, ice drakes. All of them can fly, though the wind drakes are best at it. Sometimes, dirt drakes cause the very ground to shake. The ice drakes are only seen in winter, and that hasn’t happened in centuries. But the fire drakes… _they’re_ the ones to fear, because they’re the ones who choose when to fight and all the others follow.

After lunch, the elements are taught. No one knows their tendency yet; for boys, it’s when they finally stop growing, which sometimes means they’re already adults. But girls _know_ when they get their monthly bleed, and sometimes, that’s when they’re only a decade old. That’s why, the teachers says, women lead – because they know what they’ll be so young. Men don’t get a say when they’re so much weaker. 

The boys don’t like it, but what can they do? By the time they grow into their power, some of the girls have grown into women who are already masters. 

The tendency seems to follow family lines, so most of the kids have an inkling: fire, earth, air, water, and then the rarest of all have more than one. Sometimes someone even as _all four_ , but that is rarer than rare. 

.

“Annalyn!” Ms. Ukia calls. “Pay attention, girl!” 

“Yes, Ms. Ukia,” she says, ducking her head. “Sorry!” 

Annalyn tries to focus for the rest of class, she really does, but her belly hurts and the mountains are smoking. What if a dragon is hurt? No one’s seen a dragon in almost three hundred years, but still nobody’s allowed into the mountain. Annalyn’s family maintains the wall that separates Tallow from the mountains; her family has tended to earth for longer than anyone can think back.

“Ridan,” Ms. Ukia says to Annalyn’s twin brother, older by all of ten minutes, “tell me – what is the first rule?” 

He barely glances at Annalyn before replying, “Never go to the mountains.” He ignores her glare. 

The lesson continues, but Annalyn keeps stealing looks at the smoke rising. She _knows_ a dragon is injured.

After school lets out, Ridan runs off with his friends and Annalyn drags her feet all the way home. She quickly does her homework, prepares all the ingredients for dinner, and then hides away in her room, where she stares out the window at the mountains. 

She’s silent throughout dinner. Surprisingly, her brother doesn’t mention the incident at school.

That night, Annalyn dreams of dragons. In the morning, there’s blood in her bed.

.

Once a girl bleeds and learns her tendency, she’s given instruction in that element, often to the detriment of the other three. In no one’s living memory has someone had more than two tendencies. 

Annalyn wakes up to wind roaring in her ears, to the patter of rain on a lake, to the ground shaking, to the heat of fire. She wakes up and she _knows_ , as all girls eventually know.

As always, she rises before the rest of her family. So she changes the sheets and starts breakfast, and doesn’t tell anyone.

She _has_ to get to the mountains. Her grandmother’s tendency on her mother’s side had mostly been earth, but occasionally the wind whispered to her, and she told Annalyn (oh, Annalyn couldn’t have been more than three summers old, but she remembers) to _listen_ when the elements spoke. 

Annalyn and Ridan were born on the hottest day of the year, but everyone says that the temperature dropped when Annalyn started screaming as all newborns do. It’s just a story. 

(No, Annalyn whispers, staring at the mountains, body aching with the knowledge all women are given. No, it’s not.)

Annalyn is barely one summer past her first decade. She feels so young, staring at the mountains. 

“Anna-girl, what’s wrong?” her papa asks, stepping into the kitchen. 

“Nothing, Papa,” she replies, shaking off the melancholy. “’m’just thinking.” 

Papa laughs. “Let me finish breakfast, yeah?” 

“Okay.” Annalyn steps back from the stove and asks, “Papa, have you ever seen a dragon?”

Like all the kids, Annalyn is fascinated by the dragons. She always has been. But most kids grow out of it and learn their lessons and work towards the betterment of Tallow. (Yoren, to the east, has been trying to encroach in. Malor, to the south, wants to harvest dragons. Ean, beyond the western sea, has long been jealous of Tallow’s riches. And to the north are the dragons.)

Papa laughs again. “No,” he says, “of course not.” 

Annalyn smiles up at him. “Of course not,” she repeats. 

.

Annalyn hurts all day and her need to go to the mountains grows. By lunch, she can’t focus on anything else. Ms. Ukia fusses at her again, and Ridan’s given her worried looks. After school, instead of running off with his friends, he stays with her. 

Her brother is not a fool. “You’re bleeding, aren’t you?” he asks. 

She nods, arms wrapped around her middle. “It hurts,” she mumbles, tears in her eyes. “Ri, I have to – I have to go.” She steps off the path, northwards, and Ridan grabs her arm.

“What are you doing, Anna?” he demands. 

She jerks her arm out of his grip. “I have to go to the mountains!” she shouts. The ground shakes beneath their feet – tendencies run in bloodlines, so her early connection might to closer to the earth. But she can feel the wind building, and the heat, and hear water rushing. 

“That’s crazy!” Ridan shouts. “What’s the first rule?” 

When a girl bleeds, she’s supposed to tell. She’s supposed to be sent to the proper class and start learning control, because tendencies can be dangerous during the first blood. 

Annalyn looks at her brother. “Ridan,” she says, “I’m going to the mountains.”

He throws his arms up, shakes his head, says, “You’re crazy!” But he doesn’t try to stop her again. 

Tendencies are dangerous during the first blood, even if it’s the girl’s family.

“Fine,” Ridan says. “But I’m coming with you.” 

.

All the kids in Tallow are taught to never ever go into the mountains. There are dragons in the mountains. The peace was hard-won. It’s still a shaky thing, hundreds of years later. No matter what, _never ever go into the mountains_.

Yoren, to the east, wants the land. Malor, to the south, wants the dragons. Ean, beyond the western sea, wants the mines that never slow. To the north, the dragons want only to be left alone.

It takes a week to reach Tallow’s borders, and Annalyn’s tendency to keep them alive. She meditates, recites the old rhymes, tries to remember Grandma’s stories. Every night, Ridan cries himself to sleep and Annalyn just cuddles with him. She knows that it must be the magick watching out for them, whatever it was that gave her people tendencies in the first place.

(In Ean, the people have no tendencies. In Yoren, only one person in a thousand. In Malor, only the women, and they grow weaker every generation.)

The mountains still smoke. Her body no longer aches and the bleeding has stopped, and every day, she feels stronger. The earth beneath her feet hums. The wind sings. The rain laughs as it falls and she carefully lights the fire at night with barely a thought. (She knows it’s all too easy. There hasn’t been her like in decades and she and Ridan should have been tracked that first night, brought back home. She’s in one of those great stories, and Ridan is terrified, and she’s dreaming of dragons.)

Ridan never says, _I want to go home_. He never shouts at her. He just follows her to the mountains, helps her catch rabbits and mice, cooks the meat over the fires she lights. He listens as she repeats what the earth and wind and rain say, and then she listens as he shares whatever story he thought up that day. 

It’s all too easy and they both know it. 

But finally, they reach the foot of the first mountain. The wall maintained by their family is as strong as ever, impenetrable and impossible to climb. 

“Now what?” Ridan asks. 

Annalyn grins. “Haven’t you heard of windriders?” 

She grabs her brother’s hand and jumps, pulling him with her. He shrieks, pulling her close, but the wind never loses its grip. They’re carefully dropped on the other side of the wall and Ridan throws himself down, digging his fingers into the dirt. Annalyn just falls beside him, still giggling, and waits for him to calm. 

“Now what?” he finally asks again. 

Annalyn tilts her head back, staring up at the mountain. The earth here is just as fertile as Tallow’s, the trees just as tall. It was once called Illium, the jewel of the world, the grandest land of all. Mountains full of jewels, the wellspring of magick. 

“Now we rest,” she says. “Tomorrow we climb.”

.

That night, she dreams of four dragons. The largest is green and brown, half buried in the earth. The smallest is pale silver, and constantly leaping into the air. The quietest is blue and black, half submerged in a large, frozen lake. And the fourth is a red-orange, parts of the scales still smoldering. 

“Hello, child,” the flame drake says. Annalyn shudders, feeling the voice all the way in her bones. 

“We have been waiting for you,” the dirt drake announces, voice ringing like an echo in a deep cavern. 

“Welcome!” the wind drake laughs, like a cool breeze on a hot day.

The ice drake says nothing, merely nods his head. 

“Waiting for me?” Annalyn repeats. “Why?” 

The flame drake tilts her head. “In the morning, one of Ribeth’s daughters will find you and your brother. Time runs short.” 

“You humans are slow,” the wind drake explains. “My children are as quick as the wind.” 

“You should have left the human behind,” the dirt drake says. “He is but a boy, as weak and fallible as all humans.”

“I’m human, too!” Annalyn says, stung. “Don’t talk about Ridan like that!” 

“Yulkan!” Ribeth says shortly, spinning in place to hit one of his legs with her tail. 

The dirt drake, Yulkan, snorts. “Perhaps the child will prove me wrong.”

“Mayhap he will,” the ice drake says suddenly, rising to his feet to stare at a spot on the shore. 

“Tiaden,” the flame drake calls, “what do you see?”

Annalyn tries to peer around Yulkan, but whatever it is the dragons are looking at it, it’s beyond her vision. ( _But isn’t this my dream?_ some part of her wonders.)

The ice drake says nothing else, simply settles back down. 

“Illea,” Ribeth says softly, “the child is waking.” She twines around to look at Annalyn. “Be brave, dear one. But listen to your fear, too – fear is just as important as courage.”

The flame drake nods. She says, “Wake up and remember us.” 

.

Annalyn wakes to rain on her face and her brother eating cold rabbit. “Illea, fire; Yulkan, earth; Ribeth, air; Tiaden, water,” she whispers. 

“What’s that?” Ridan asks, grimacing into the rabbit meat. “I saved you some.” He nods towards the spit from last night, where half the rabbit remains. 

“Remember these names,” Annalyn says, reaching for the rabbit. “Illea, Yulkan, Ribeth, and Tiadan. I think they’re the dragon gods.” 

Her brother blinks at her. “Dragons have gods?” 

“Of course they do.” Annalyn frowns down at the rabbit. It looked much more appetizing last night, but since her brother ate it cold, so will she. “One of them, the wind drake, is sending a child of hers to give us a ride somewhere.”

Ridan just blinks some more before shaking his head. “Okay,” he mumbles. Then, louder, “Can’t you do something about this rain?” 

“No,” she says flatly. “What’s the second rule, Ridan?”

He pouts down at the last bite of rabbit. “Don’t change the weather.” 

.

The rain finally lets up around mid-morning. Not two minutes later, a silver-blue dragon lands a few steps away from where Ridan is napping. Annalyn watched her come, circle around, choose the spot, and drop from the sky. 

“He-hello,” she says. 

For all that wind drakes are smaller than the other three, Ribeth’s daughter is still larger than any horse in Tallow. 

“We have little time,” the wind drake says. “I am Rihel. Awaken your brother.” 

Annalyn crawls over to Ridan and shakes his shoulder. “Get up,” she hisses. “There’s a dragon waiting!” 

Ridan sits up and stares at the wind drake. “Oh, my,” he whispers. “Anna – there’s a dragon. You, you’re not crazy.” 

“Come, children,” Rihel commands. She kneels down, so Annalyn drags Ridan to his feet. They hurry over; Annalyn shoves Ridan onto Rihel’s back, with a little help from the wind, before flinging herself behind him. “You’ll not fall off unless I wish it,” Rihel says, rising to her feet. “And I shall not wish it.” 

Annalyn wraps her arms around Ridan. She can feel him shaking; he’s only been on a horse once in their lives, and he fell off then. “You’re so brave, Ri,” she whispers into his back. “I love you. Thank you for coming with me.”

His shaking lessens. Rihel throws herself into the air and beats her wings. 

.

All her life, Annalyn has dreamed of dragons. Of course she has; all of Tallow’s children must, since the dragons are so close. Four tendencies and four kinds of dragons – it is a logical thought. 

The magick came from somewhere. The power that keeps Tallow strong, that the other realms are losing or have already lost. No one in living memory has had more than two tendencies. 

Ridan laughs into the wind, arms spread wide as Rihel dives into a cloud.

 _We’re in one of those stories_ , Annalyn thinks, looking towards the mountains. 

The dragons are waiting for them, have been waiting for Annalyn. The mountains are on fire, she can see that now – how many flame drakes live? 

“Look!” Ridan shouts, pointing to the east, where hundreds of wind drakes are playing in the sky. 

No one has ever seen such a sight. Annalyn’s breath catches and her arms tighten around her brother. 

_We’re in one of those stories,_ she thinks again, wanting to cry. She knows how those stories end.

.

Rihel lands on a cliff; five dragons are spread out on the mountain. Rihel kneels so that Annalyn and Ridan can climb off her and then moves to settle next to the only ice drake present. There are two fire drakes, one other wind drake, and one dirt drake. 

Annalyn can feel the moment that Ridan’s excitement turns to fear, so she clutches his hand. 

“I am Ylava,” the slightly smaller fire drake says. She barely inclines her head to the fire drake next to her. “This is my mate, Aladen.” She nods toward the ice drake and says, “Rihel’s mate, Eliko,” then the dirt drake, “Ciar,” and finally the other wind drake, “Uyan.”

“Hi,” Annalyn says. “I’m Annalyn.” She nudges Ridan. “This is my brother, Ridan.” She swallows heavily. “Why have you brought us here?”

Ylava rises to her feet. “We have had peace since I was but a dragonet, and that was millennia ago. I am the Lord of Dragons. All of the dragons here are my council.” Ridan’s hand squeezes Annalyn’s, but he keeps silent as Ylava continues, “The king of Yoren, the emperor of Malor, and the chief of Ean build an army together, hidden from Tallow’s windseers. And beyond our mountains…” She turns her head towards the north. “Something stirs there.”

Ridan’s voice shakes as he forces out, “What does that have to do with us?”

Ylava stares down at him. “I do not know,” she says. “But I, and Eliko, and Ciar, and Uyan received a vision from a First Drake.” 

“Annalyn,” Ciar says, voice ringing out over the mountains. “Eleven summers old and already bleeding. You dream of us as we dream of you.”

She nods, fingers tightening around Ridan’s. “And you have all four,” Uyan says. “Show us.” 

“I don’t – I can’t control them all that well yet,” she says, half-pleadingly. “I don’t know why – ”

Rihel untwines from her mate and hurries back to Annalyn, gently folding a wing around her. “Peace, child,” she says softly. “You know this, deep in your bones, where your dreams reside. The magick is in you and it wants to play. Let it.”

Annalyn looks at Ridan; he smiles at her. “You’ve been dreaming of dragons all our lives,” he says, voice still a little shaky. “Show them, Anna.”

She stands up straight, raising her chin.

.

In the mountains, there are dragons – ice drakes, wind drakes, dirt drakes, flame drakes. Legend says they created the world.

Legend says they’ll destroy it. 

In Tallow, children are taught the elements. They have a sacred duty to keep the world from the mountains. In the closest countries, jealousy and fear mingle and build into something dangerous.

Ylava is the Lord of the Dragons, though only two humans know that. 

“What do you think?” Ridan asks softly, staring down at the world from the highest peak. His tendency still hasn’t appeared; he just keeps growing, and their twentieth summer nears. 

Annalyn smiles, leaning into him. “It’s time to return,” she says. “We must see what the human world is doing.” 

Long ago, dragons created the world from their breath. Only Tallow remembers. 

_We’re in one of those stories_ , Annalyn thinks, throwing herself into the wind. 

She knows how those stories end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Any, any +/ any, "Dragonslaying's a great sport. If you survive."
> 
> So… I’m thinking about jotting down all the details about this world currently swirling around in my brain. But here’s a little prequelish thing.

In school, there are classes about the dragons. The classes are taught before lunch because sometimes they get gory. (Once upon a time, there was no peace. People studied dragons and dragons studied people, and a lot on both sides died. _Many died to bring us this information_ is said at the end of every lesson, and the kids nod solemnly.) There are four kinds of dragons – flame drakes, dirt drakes, wind drakes, ice drakes. All of them can fly, though the wind drakes are best at it. Sometimes, dirt drakes cause the very ground to shake. The ice drakes are only seen in winter, and that hasn’t happened in centuries. But the fire drakes… _they’re_ the ones to fear, because they’re the ones who choose when to fight and all the others follow.  
…

**1500 years ago**

His name is Ionza and he’s about to die. His family has tended to water for longer than anyone can remember, and Mama called him gifted with it, but what good is that when an ice drake awakens right in front of your eyes? 

The ice drake blinks at him as it rises out of the frozen lake, wings spreading as it stretches. His bow is broken, splintered when he fell; both his knives were lost in the battle with the brigands. The sword has never been his weapon, really, but it’s all he has left, along with three arrows that are useless without the bow.

The war party had brought him along because they were meant to face a flame or dirt drake, and water is some use against those. But an ice drake? 

The drake settles back into the lake, leaving only its head out. Which means that this lake is deeper than anyone believed, and probably connects back to the mountains, somewhere.

“Why have you approached my lake?” the drake rumbles, an icy wind buffeting against Ionza. “I feel you, little thing. How many summers have you?”

“Eight-eighteen,” Ionza manages, fingers clenching around the hilt of his sword. “I, I am Ionza and I have come to slay the beast! For, for glory and righteousness, and, and – ”

“Silence,” the drake says and Ionza swallows down the rest of his speech, written by Elias at the start of their quest. Elias is dead now, of course, along with all the rest – nine warriors who had yet to reach their tendency, and three who tended to air. And Ionza, who still isn’t sure why he survived. 

“I am Tiaden’s daughter, Arindo,” the drake says, “and I’ll not be dying today, little thing.” She laughs, the sound chilling Ionza all the way to his bones. “However, because you are nearly kin to me, I shall let you leave with your life.” 

Ionza cannot return without slaying the dragon. His companions all died to reach this point. To go home without honoring their sacrifice – no. They weren’t meant to face an ice drake; they’d been sent for one of the dirt drakes plaguing the outer rings. So little is known about ice drakes.

“I am Ionza,” he says, standing as straight as he can and hefting the sword, “son of Yvonna and Calamorn, descendant of water, and I have come to slay the beast.” 

Arindo lunges out of the lake in a great surge of ice and water, roaring, “So be it.” 

His name is Ionza and he dies battling a dragon.


End file.
